


Nutritura

by Jalules



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jalules/pseuds/Jalules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dolorosa watches from afar, as she has done for sweeps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nutritura

**Author's Note:**

> Result of a prompt on Tumblr.

.  
.  
.

The Dolorosa watches from afar, as she has done for sweeps.

Tucked away inside an abandoned hive, an ancient mansion of stone and heavy woods now creaking and hollow, crumbling at the corners, she sits on the outskirts of a circle of shivering trolls and busies her nervous hands mending a young boy’s shirt.

The center of the circle should be the fire crackling low to the ground, inviting everyone present to huddle around its warmth on this chilled morning, and at a glance it might seem as such. But the Dolorosa knows better, and with a glance up from her needlework, she confirms her suspicions. The true center of this circle of tired peasants and filthy runaways, reformed thieves and curious strangers, is her sweet Signless.

He has been preaching all night and his audience should be on their way, but it’s near daylight and after a close encounter with a band of blueblood soldiers just a few villages away, the whole area seems rife with danger. No one here is too keen on going home to an interrogation, or worse, to find their homes destroyed in the search for the elusive Signless.

He feels guilty, responsible, he’s told her many times before, but he lets the people linger around him and cling to his words for a few more hours, will let them sleep in a huddle, warning them over and over again that none should follow in his footsteps, and when night falls they will likely leave.

One or two might stay on, follow him further down the path, but he turns away the majority of them, asking them to support him from afar, for their own safety.

When it comes down to it, the Dolorosa is one of his only constant companions.

He shows his gratitude in small ways. Today she is seated in the only chair that could be found in the dying mansion, while the Signless himself takes up residence on the floor.

His Disciple sits poised to his left, the Psiioniic hunched on his right.

The Dolorosa remembers when it was only her.

She is the one who lifted the Signless out of the dust on the floor of the brooding caverns. She is the one who fed and bathed him, who rocked him gently to sleep in a pool of sopor. She brushed his hair, sung to him in murmured words, suffered pinprick bites to her hand while he teethed.

She’s raised the Signless to be a strong young troll, to be gentle and soft spoken, and he is. Has always been. He keeps to himself for the most part, spends much of his time thinking, concentrating.

He is her wriggler just as much as he is the Mother Grub’s, the empire’s.

 

Still young herself, it is a challenge, but one she embraces.

When he stumbles on newly formed legs, she picks him up and kisses the top of his head, whispers words of encouragement to keep him trying.

She rubs his back and hushes him through the panicked speech that comes with his first vision, tells him not to be afraid, hides her own fear at this powerful thing, this unknown, that overtakes her precious charge.

The night his eyes begin to tinge red and he is hating himself quietly, she drapes an arm around his shoulders and tells him that he is the handsomest troll she has ever seen, and she isn’t only saying it because she’s his custodian.

She gives him the world and asks nothing in return.

 

He calls her Lady, the only word that seems to fit, and she’s happy to hear it. In innocent laughter, through the tears of heartbreak, she answers his call, and when he sits her down and tells her that he has a message to spread, that he has to leave, she insists on going with him.

She watches him preach to one or two, to twenty, to hundreds, and as the numbers grow he changes. He speaks louder, brasher, and though the sound is sometimes foreign and abrasive, she is proud of every word.

Occasionally she will approach him after a sermon and suggest, perhaps, if it is not too much trouble, that he refrain from using certain terminology, as there may be wrigglers present.

 

The day that they’re stopped by soldiers and the presentation of her rare blood isn’t enough to let them pass without question is terrifying.

She’s relied on her former position to travel from sector to sector under the guise of highly confidential jade blooded duties all this time, and to be told to step aside and let them speak to the fellow in the cloak is like a stab to the heart.

Running from highbloods is her least favorite of all activities.

 

She is not surprised when people begin to follow them. The Signless expresses frustration though, insists that he should really be doing this alone, that he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt.

His attitude seems to change the night he sits with her under the stars and tells her that he’s met someone, no not like that, just this psychic.

She raises her eyebrows, remains quiet.

He tells her that the troll in question is not much older than himself, that he’s been in service to the empire and escaped. He’s already a fugitive and really, it wouldn’t hurt him any if he traveled with them, since he’s already in so much trouble.

She wonders if that means he will bring trouble, but says nothing.

He tells her that he remembers this troll, from the time before, from the visions, and he looks at her with such sad eyes, desperate for understanding and acceptance and something that she just cannot give.

She suggests that he bring this ‘Psiioniic,’ to dinner. That is, to whatever grouping of trees they happen to be eating under on that particular day.

 

For all of her worry, the Psiioniic proves to be mostly harmless. He is even more soft spoken than her Signless, except for when he begins to chatter non-stop about interplanetary travel, lisping all the way, so excited that it catches her up too and leaves her laughing at his rambling explanations. He is polite and shy, keeps his head down in what she suspects is an attempt to hide his too-bright, two color eyes.

He’s good for the Signless. They brood together, compare visions and psionic flares, and when they argue they rile each other up enough for it to matter. They goad each other into moving forward, and the Dolorosa quickly learns that the Psiioniic’s opinion matters in a way that her own never will.

She is alright with that.

She has to remind herself that he is not hers. When she sees him struggling with old memories, reeling from the carelessness the Signless sometimes shows, it’s all she can do not to reach out to him. She cannot take him into her arms and shush him, pet his head the way she can the Signless. But she does what she can, telling him that she hopes he will stay on with them at least for a little while.

When he’s ready, she takes his hand and holds it carefully between her own.

 

It is another night entirely that the Signless tells her of his Disciple. Not so much in words, but in actions. He is strangely more quiet than usual, and when she asks if everything is alright he gets irritable, declares that he’s going for a walk.

When he comes back to their dessert camp, there is a girl with him.

The Dolorosa bristles.

The Disciple, it turns out, has been following them for quite some time. She is fascinated by the Signless; his message, his visions. She’s been watching his sermons and taking notes, sketching with charcoal-dipped claws to put pictures to the words.

She is undeniably skilled, but also messy. She is loud at inappropriate times, falling all over herself to drag a steady flow of conversation out of the sulking object of her affections.

The Dolorosa is disturbed by her blatant red advances, even more so when the girl lashes out in moments of near-black. She is silently horrified to learn that the Signless has been talking to this girl for some time now, and has simply not said anything about it to her.

She keeps her lips pressed together in a thin line when he agrees to the Disciple’s request to accompany them.

She is suspicious, perhaps a little jealous, and she feels dreadful as she holds onto resentment for the girl.

 

The Disciple finds her in the midday sun. Hiding in shadow, the girl speaks softer than the Dolorosa has ever heard her before, murmuring a word of thanks for reordering her tiny pots of ink and paint.

Just because she does not like her doesn’t mean she won’t still lend a hand in organization.

After a stretch of silence, the Disciple asks her what the sun feels like when it doesn’t burn. They strike up a conversation.

They talk about light and shadow, about the shadows under the Signless’ eyes, about how dark they’ve gotten lately.

The Disciple tells her how she thinks his dreams have been worse lately, purrhaps, and she wishes there was something she could do.

The Dolorosa asks her if she can sing,

Just barely.

She asks if she knows the songs from the forest regions,

No, she was raised in the mountains.

The Dolorosa considers. She asks the Disciple to sing for her, something she knows by heart, and the girl does so, blushing green.

The Disciple’s song is about rough ground and wide skies, about finding each other by howl and call. It’s a faster tempo than she’s used to, but clever in its wording.

That will do, she says after the girl’s voice tapers to a murmur, When he looks troubled, sing that for him.

Later that day, she hears the Disciple’s cat tongue voice lilting softly to that same tune. She follows the sound to the back of the cave they’re staying in and peers in to see her Signless lying with his head in the girl’s lap, expression peaceful as his hair is stroked, his anxious mind soothed.

She catches the Disciple’s eye and they share a conspiratorial sort of smile.

 

The Dolorosa listens to the murmur of the trolls around her Signless.

They talk of keeping watch and whether or not they should go out for water before it’s too bright.

The younger ones ask for more stories and the Signless cringes a little. He’s exhausted.

The Psiioniic shouts at them all to shut the hell up already. He gets a hold of himself and lisps an apology, suggests, in a more reasoned tone, that everyone let the Signless rest a while.

The Disciple wiggles her fingers playfully at the nearest little troll, turns to ask the Signless if maybe he wouldn’t mind retelling just one more vision, purrlease, for the little ones, one about the trolls dressed in white.

The Signless sighs and kisses his Disciple’s forehead, murmurs a no.

Outside the circle, the Dolorosa sighs with him.

They have outgrown her a little, she knows. She fits awkwardly into their group now, and spends much of her time at a distance, near enough should they need help, far enough so she won’t meddle. There are days she wonders if she should leave, write them out a polite goodbye letter and walk into the blazing sun. They can handle themselves now.

But the thought tangles her up inside. How could she stand to be anywhere else?

From across the crowd, the Signless meets her eyes.

He looks so tired, so pained, so grown up and far away that her chest just tightens, and he smiles at her.

Lady, he says softly, but the room has gone so quiet she can hear him clear as night, will always hear him when he calls her, from the field outside their hive, through the woods when he gets lost and cries for help, over the crash of waves and clash of swords and the declaration calling for his execution, the term of endearment rings out like a bell.

She folds the shirt she’s mending across her lap, tucks the needle away, Yes?

And now the Signless isn’t the only one looking at her. The attention of the circle has shifted and they are all watching her. The Disciple’s eyes are wide and earnest, the Psiioniic’s gaze furtive and shy as ever, and the young trolls scattered among the group, the smallest of them barely two sweeps, are staring up at her with fascination. Every one of them reminds her of the Signless, makes her smile because they are so very different from her Signless.

Could you tell us a story, he asks, and he is five sweeps and ten sweeps and just a wriggler again, and the bags under his eyes don’t seem so heavy when she wrings her hands and says that she supposes she can, if he would like, although she doesn’t see why since he is a much better story teller anyway.

One of your stories, he says, and everyone has turned to face her.

The fire crackles lower than ever and all these sets of yellow eyes are so hopeful.

Well. Alright then, she says, sits up straighter, and begins with the first tale to come to mind,

 

Once there was a troll who saw fit to host a great banquet. He desired for all of the most noble trolls to come and enjoy this banquet with him, and so sent forth his servants to deliver invitations,

 

She looks to the Signless, sees him leaning against an overturned crate, peaceful for the moment, and waits for his encouraging nod before she continues.

Her voice is as clear and strong as it was in her youth as she tells the tale of the empty banquet, of the nobles too busy to attend, and the lowbloods called off the street to take their place. The room hums with spoken warmth, with wonder at a piece of fiction in the middle of a harsh reality.

They all listen, and when the story is done the Signless asks her for another.

She could never refuse.


End file.
